Cybersecurity writer and analyst. Covering breaches, threats, and vulnerabilities — analysis beyond the headline.
Vulnerabilities
Palo Alto Networks disclosed CVE-2026-0300 on May 5, 2026 — a CVSS 9.3 buffer overflow zero-day in PAN-OS that lets unauthenticated attackers execute code as root on internet-exposed PA-Series and VM-Series firewalls. Unit 42 has tracked exploitation by a likely state-sponsored cluster (CL-STA-1132) since April 9. CISA added the CVE
North Korean Threat Actors
Federal prosecutors sentenced two U.S. nationals — Matthew Isaac Knoot of Nashville and Erick Ntekereze Prince of Naples, Florida — to 18 months each for running "laptop farms" that helped North Korean IT workers fraudulently obtain remote employment at nearly 70 American companies. They are the seventh and eighth
Policy & Government
On Friday, May 1, 2026, Australian Home Affairs and Cyber Security Minister Tony Burke announced the establishment of the Cyber Incident Review Board, a seven-member statutory body modeled on the U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board the Trump administration disbanded mid-investigation in January 2025. Australia's version is chaired
Ransomware
The DOJ sentenced Latvian national Deniss Zolotarjovs to 102 months in prison on May 4, 2026 — the first U.S. prosecution of a Karakurt member ever. Court documents tie the Conti-affiliated negotiator to extortion of more than 54 organizations, $56 million in losses across 13 victims alone, and a deliberate
Threat Intelligence
ESET disclosed a North Korea-aligned APT37/ScarCruft supply-chain compromise of sqgame.net, a Yanbian-themed gaming platform serving the ethnic-Korean community on the China-North Korea border. Trojanized Android APKs deploy a new BirdCall backdoor port. The APKs are still live.
Vulnerabilities
A 9.8 unauthenticated authentication bypass and a 7.7 privilege escalation flaw in MOVEit Automation chain to full administrative control. Patch this week. Upgrading via the full installer is the only fix — there is no workaround. The product family is the same one Cl0p exploited to breach 2,100
Cyber Crime
Six days before the 276-arrest takedown, the DOJ's Scam Center Strike Force restrained $701.96 million in cryptocurrency, seized 503 fake investment websites, and pulled off the first-ever federal seizure of a Telegram channel — the recruitment funnel that lured trafficking victims into Cambodian scam compounds. The arrests got
Data Breaches
A Bloomberg investigation found that nearly all 20 U.S. state-run health insurance exchanges plus D.C. were sending applicant data — citizenship, race, ZIP codes, prescriptions, even disclosures about incarcerated family members — to TikTok, Meta, Google, Snap, and LinkedIn via misconfigured tracking pixels. More than 7 million Americans bought insurance
phishing
Securonix tracked a phishing campaign that has compromised more than 80 organizations — mostly U.S.-based — by abusing legitimate SimpleHelp and ConnectWise ScreenConnect remote-monitoring tools. The lure impersonates the U.S. Social Security Administration. The architecture is dual-RMM redundancy: when defenders detect one channel, the other persists. Securonix Threat Research
Ransomware
World Leaks — the rebrand of Hunters International — published 8.5 terabytes and roughly 15 million files from Mediaworks, Hungary's pro-Orbán media giant. Mediaworks asked journalists not to report on the leak, citing criminal data-handling law. At least one Hungarian outlet refused. The data-extortion group World Leaks claimed responsibility
phishing
Microsoft Defender Research disclosed a sophisticated AiTM phishing campaign that hit 35,000+ users at 13,000+ organizations across 26 countries in just three days. 92% of targets were in the U.S. The lure was a fake employee disciplinary case. The reverse proxy stole session tokens — bypassing MFA in
Policy & Government
The Department of Homeland Security used a 1930s customs law to demand Google hand over a Canadian's location, activity logs, and identifying information — over anti-ICE posts. The Canadian has not entered the United States in more than ten years. The ACLU is suing. WIRED reported on May 4,